Next Time
by C.Watherston
Summary: 'I'll love you forever, and I will find you. If not in this life, then in the next' Because Brittana's epic romance is one for the ages.


**I both dedicate and blame this strange little number to my wonderful best friend ninjaelmo. **

Santana Lopez is eleven years old when she learns about soul-mates. She had never, until that point, given much thought to what happened after the ambulance took away the body of the gangster from her street, or why her parents looked so concerned when Abuela started talking about her grandfather sitting next to her at dinner. They'd put her grandfather in a box the day before, and her cousins had lowered it to the ground and everyone spoke in strange voices.

By the time she's in elementary school, she understands death, but she doesn't understand the cross that Lucy Fabray wears around her neck or the statue of the lady in the alcove of her Abuela's sitting room. These things are of no concern to a girl from the Heights, who saw a boy her age get stabbed and her mother told her desperately not to say a word, to forget the blood on her hands and knees.

"Naya"

The world was uttered in a breathless undertone from across the crowded hallway, and something about that voice plunged into her chest like a dull blade. She whirled, and for a moment it was as though the masses parted for her.

There, standing still in the frantic bubbling of students talking and worrying and getting to class or not, was a diminutive blonde girl with pigtails.

"What?" she snapped, remembering that this was Lima and weakness from a Heights girl could get her hurt.

"Your name is Naya" explained the blonde dreamily, with conviction.

A chill ran up Santana's spine and for a split second every fibre of her being screamed _yes! That's right, that's my name! _

Instead she said, coldly; "You needz ta get outta my space; I'm Santana Lopez"

The girl smiled.

"They call me Brittany, but you know me as Heather"

_Heather. Heather. Heather. _

"I don't know a Heather"

A shrug.

"You used to. Have you seen my shoes?"

Santana blinked. '_You used to'? _

For the first time she noticed that Brittany wasn't wearing any shoes, just white socks with a little pink frill around the top; little girl's socks, a part of Santana sneered, even as another part of her began to reach out for the innocence shining in the blue eyes that looked steadily back at her. Those eyes could see into the deepest, darkest reaches of Santana Lopez.

"What the hell happened to them?"

"Oh, we were playing hide-and-seek. I tried to tell them they'd won, but I don't think they heard"

Hatred, hot and dark, spewed up from Santana's heart, flooding into her blood from the spot where she'd felt the blunt knife before.

"You tell me which girls they were. They'll give you back your shoes" Santana promised darkly and held out her pinkie finger. Brittany smiled brilliantly and linked her with it.

"Thank you Naya"

"Santana" the Latina snapped, letting go of Brittany's finger and striding off with the other girl trailing in the space she cut through the mob.

"**Naya, please don't do this" Heather begged softly. Her fingers were cold and clumsy as she gripped the front of her lover's shirt. Naya caught her hands and pulled her close, seeming to forget for a moment the great hurry she'd been in only a second ago. **

"**Darling, I have to. The Lord's carriage-"**

**Heather rose her hands to clutch the collar of her shirt and kissed her speaking lips hard and fast, shutting off the words before they could be spoken. She stole them right from Naya's lungs and kept them cradled in her own mouth, destroying them. **

"**Just let him go, Naya. Let him go" **

**Her jaw clenched and she stepped away. Alia stumbled into the empty space where Naya had been standing. **

"**Naya! Please, no!" she begged the inky darkness. Naya's booted feet crunched in the forest undergrowth. Heather turned to find her silhouetted against the moon. Her horse was tied beside Heather's tired old nag. **

"**He killed Noah, Heather. Noah and David both are dead because of him" **

"**He'll be brought to justice, Naya, I promise you. But not like this. Never like this" **

**She began to walk away regardless. Heather broke inside and her sobs turned to rage. **

"**I won't do it! I will not give you the satisfaction of crying by your grave!" **

**Naya half-turned to look at Heather for the last time, hoping with every bone of her not dedicated to revenge that it was not. **

"**I'll love you forever, and I will find you. If not in this life, then the next" **

"**I will not mourn you" Heather growled, the sound flooded with tears. Naya pulled the mask down over her unforgettable features and mounted her horse. She galloped away, giving her steed his head before she could change her mind, before she turned back and ran into her lover's arms, forsaking the blood-oath she'd made to the two men who'd loved and protected her for as long as she could remember. **

**Behind her, Heather collapsed to her knees and wrapped her arms around herself in a desperate, childish attempt to hold herself together. Clutching the shattered pieces of herself that were leaking out to stain the forest floor, she whispered brokenly to her knees. **

"**I will not mourn you" she gasped. **

Santana remembered the first time she'd dreamed about Heather and Naya. She'd woken up screaming for Brittany, soaked in cold sweat and shaking uncontrollably. She'd terrified her mother and couldn't sleep again until she'd called the Pierce house and spoken to Brittany.

"I told you that you used to know me" Brit had been calm enough to soothe Santana's shattered nerves, but when she hung up and assured her parents she was fine, she remembered that girl's weren't supposed to kiss other girls unless there was a shit load of alcohol or cold, hard cash involved in the process.

When Heather, the woman with Brittany's eyes, had kissed Naya in her dream, there was no money, no alcohol, no cheering boys or catcalls. It had been an act of familiar beauty, devotion, terror and love.

She ignored Brittany for a week afterwards, in the cruel way that Brittany would get used to in the years to come. She never said 'I am sorry' but that was probably because she never had to, because Brittany never asked for apologies. When Santana was waiting for her by her locker after a week of nothingness with a cool look on her face, Brittany just smiled and informed her that Lord Tubbington had finally learned how to use the litter tray.

Once, just once, Santana called Brittany 'Heather' in the blazing moment of white starbursts as they lay entwined together. Afterwards, with Brittany breathing gently beside her, Santana remembered in vivid detail the woman she used to be, obsessed with revenge against a cruel lord somewhere in mid-century Scotland. She watched Brittany sleep that night and whispered quietly against her sweat-slicked collarbone;

"_I'll love you forever, and I will find you. If not in this life, then the next" _

And Brittany replied;

"I will not mourn you. I'll just see you next time"


End file.
